It was the first time the Navy nurse had seen him, her only sibling, in nearly four decades.

The two khaki-uniformed sailors stood looking at each other's faces. It was an emotional reunion at San Diego Naval Medical Center on Friday -- possible in part because these almost-only children both made the Navy their family.

Chief Petty Officer Robert Williamson is greeted for the first time by his sister Cmdr. Cindy Murray since she last saw him when he was 6 years old and she 14 years old.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / U-T San Diego

Chief Petty Officer Robert Williamson is greeted for the first time by his sister Cmdr. Cindy Murray since she last saw him when he was 6 years old and she 14 years old.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / U-T San Diego

Chief Petty Officer Robert Williamson is greeted for the first time by his sister Cmdr. Cindy Murray since she last saw him when he was 6 years old and she 14 years old.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / U-T San Diego

Cmdr. Cindy Murray along with her brother Chief Petty Officer Robert Williamson answer questions from news reporters following their first meeting. The siblings have not seen each other since she was 14 years old and he was 6 years old.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / U-T San Diego

But on Friday – finally – the brother and sister got to embrace. Williamson tried to salute his officer sister, as a good sailor would, but she quickly pulled him close.

“This is my brother!” she told the assembled crowd, including television cameras.

The siblings got to compare features. Both have brown eyes, narrow faces.

“It's just so emotional. It's the greatest thing,” Murray, 51, said, after wiping away tears. “I've looked for him for a long, long time. And now here he is.”

The hardest part? The missed years, Murray said. Williamson has three adult sons and a grandson. A single woman, Murray never got to be the aunt who cheered at Little League games or blew up balloons for birthday parties.

“He's been right under my nose all along. And I've looked for him forever,” she said. “We've had all this time we could have been together.”

Her brother never saw this day coming.

“It's undescribable,” Williamson, 44, said. “Never in a million years did I think I'd be standing here.”

The two siblings share a father but have different mothers. The two halves lost touch when Williamson's side of the family moved to Northglenn, Colo. Murray lived in Englewood. Only 20 miles separated them, but it was enough.

Murray moved West, attending nursing school at San Diego State. A Navy recruiter snared her with the promise of college money at age 26. She stayed and prospered, coming back out of the reserves after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Williamson went to automotive school and was drawn into the Navy at age 23 for help with his school loans.

Both of them apparently craved the framework that the military provided.